The Day I Pooped My Closet

Dear the Internets,

This is a true story.

This is my truestory.

I lay down my dignity for you, because I love you very much.

Sincerely,Beth

Once upon a time, I pooped my closet.

I was pregnant.

With twins.

Approximately 100 years pregnant with twins, judging by my size, but really only 7 months or so, which made me roughly larger than a semi-truck and smaller than the Empire State building. Big, in other words, especially since I started the pregnancy “fluffy” according to a nurse who was kind and wonderful and didn’t call me chubby to my face for which I will always love her something fierce.

Fluffy to begin, I was, and then I got, well, fluffier. Growing two babies does a number on the body, and mine popped out in all sorts of delightful places not limited to my belly. No; I’m pretty sure my hind end, my thighs and my breasts were growing sympathetically in proportion to my middle, good girlfriends that they were, not wanting my belly to feel alone in all the fluff.

Now I didn’t spend much time feeling badly about my weight because I’d lost 3 babies to miscarriage years ago, and now my body was making two of them, so HOT DAMN, Fluffy Body; you ROCK, you know?

Still, every time my mama walked into my house, she’d catch sight of my largess and her eyes would pop and her face would pale and she’d say, “Honey, you’re as big as a barn” and “You know you’re going to have those babies early, right? Because YOU CANNOT GET ANY BIGGER, Child; THERE’S NO WHERE ELSE FOR THOSE BABIES TO GO except OUT OF YOU” which I think was her prayer or an exorcism of sorts: IN JESUS’ PRECIOUS NAME, I COMMAND YOU TO GET OUT, Babies!

So I was big, is what I’m saying. Or Enormous if one wants the technical, scientific description. And that meant it was hard to move, particularly if I was sitting or laying down or anything other than already in motion per Newton’s First Law of Motion which I’m sure he discovered whilst watching someone pregnant.

And I was tired all the time because a) growing two babies is hard work, man, and b) lugging the three of us around was tantamount to getting a cruise liner in and out of port; slow, tedious, a real nail-biter in close quarters.

On the day of the incident, I laid myself down in bed and took a nap. A nap! Which, in case you don’t have kids, I’ll tell you is a miracle both in scope and in frequency because naps are precious and rare, friends.If I ever get to nominate anything for sainthood — anything to sit at the right hand of God the Father in Glorious Heaven — it will be naps. People will be like, What about Mother Teresa who selflessly cared for the destitute and dying? And I will be all, MOVE OVER, TERESA because NAPS.

So I was taking a nap in my nightie sans panties because I could no longer figure out how to lasso those things around my ankles much less wrestle them all the way up my legs, but I was awakened by an urge to go potty. I ignored it, of course, because NAP and exhaustion and the impractical nature of moving the ship out of port, and I fell back asleep, only to be awakened again and again.

Le sigh.

The age old decision of Go Potty vs. Stay in Bed compounded by Pregnancy. It’s a doozy, I tell you, but I finally decided to wrestle myself from the bed and make the trek through our master closet to the en suite bathroom and relieve myself.

Only, on the way, I farted.

Except it wasn’t just an air poopy like I thought.

It was a poopy poopy.

Followed by another poopy poopy.

Followed by another poopy poopy.

Poopies in rapid succession making good their escape and rushing to freedom.

And, as I was sans panties, each soft poopy slid to the closet floor with little puh-looping sounds and sat there like brownie batter, soaking into the carpet.

I, of course, was no longer in the proper physical condition to get my carcass down on the floor to clean it up, but I was also full of abject humiliation and paralyzed at the thought of a) telling my husband I’d just pooped our closet, and b) asking him to clean it.

So I did what anyone in my situation would do: I stood in a sea of poopies and cried.

And cried.

And cried.

Which is where Greg found me. In my nightie. Standing in a field of daisies minus the daisies and plus my feces. Sobbing.

He tried to bundle me off to bed so he could scrub the carpet, but I wasn’t then and am not now a woman who appreciates being bundled, so, through my hiccuppy sobs, I asked the man to lower me to the closet floor, bring me a scrub brush and carpet cleaner and let me clean up my own mess in privacy. Complete privacy please, I begged, “You go AWAY, Greg. Go FAR, FAR AWAY and try to FORGET THIS EVER HAPPENED. I know we vowed for better or worse, in sickness and health, but THAT WAS A CROCK, MAN. I meant for better or worse FINANCIALLY, and in sickness and health WITH NURSES TO CLEAN OUR BOTTOMS. I did not agree to THIS. To Poop Fest 2006. So I need you to go AWAY and breathe peppermint and imagine me back when I wasn’t a closet pooper. PLEASE, man; I BEG YOU. GO AWAY.”

And so he did. He brought me supplies. He lowered me to the floor. He went away.

But I should’ve agreed to the bundling, because I spent the next half hour sitting crisscross in the closet trying to reach past my babies to scrub the carpet, and you guys… you guys… every time I shifted, I touched poop. To the left, my knee hit poop. To the right, my thigh nudged poop. Like St. Patrick’s prayer, except instead of Christ behind me, before me, beneath me, above me, to my left and to my right, where I sit and where I lie, it was POOP. I mean, Jesus was there, too, but mostly POOP.

Due to belly size, I didn’t have the leverage to clean. So instead of cleaning, I smeared. And when I freaked out that I was smearing — I am smearing poop in my closet. OH MY WORD. I AM SMEARING POOP IN MY CLOSET. — I smeared some more. OCD poop cleaning, except without any actual ability to clean. Obsessive compulsive poop smearing. I’m pretty sure that’s a diagnosable psychiatric condition.

Well, eventually, I quit. Wisdom is the better part of valor, after all, and although I admittedly like to exhaust valor before I let wisdom through the door, I could admit I’d tried and was defeated and needed Greg to finish.

I went to get him.

I mean, I tried to go get him, but that’s when I discovered my legs were asleep after being trapped under the belly all that time.

I pulled on the dead weight of my legs to get them out from under me, sticking them straight out from my belly — and into the wasteland — to revive them, but no feeling came back. Minutes and minutes of leaving my legs in poop and just no feeling at all because they were still beneath my belly, even sticking out, and the belly was still good at cutting off blood.

So I laid down.

In the closet.

In smeared poop.

And Greg came back a half hour later to find me there, with poop on my hands and poop on my legs, lying in the poop I’d smushed into the carpet.

In conclusion, I once pooped the closet.

And also, being married to me is THE BEST.

So listen, friend. You might be having a down day. You might be going through a rough patch. You might wonder if you’re the only one sitting in a giant, figurative pile of poo. But I am here to tell you, if you are not sitting in a giant, literal pile of poo, you’re doing better than you know. Better than you know, friends, and better than me that day.

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ABOUT BETH WOOLSEYI'm a writer. And a mess. And mouthy, brave, and strong. I believe we all belong to each other. I believe in the long way 'round. And I believe, always, in grace in the grime and wonder in the wild of a life lived off course from what was, once, a perfectly good plan.

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[…] as you subscribe, I’ll send you a bonus story, exclusive to email. A sequel, if you will, to The Day I Pooped My Closet. This one is The Day I Peed My Office. Greg says this is more of a threat than an enticement. I say […]

I read this article once a year, on this day. Because 3 years ago, I read this article and laughed myself into labor! This story is the perfect encapsulation of the awesome misery that is pregnancy. So, thank you for sharing this, so that the pregnancy from hell ended three weeks early! We’ve never met, and you’re definitely in my top five favorite people for writing this piece of gold!

[…] just a cow.” It was instead, “I need to read you this blog post,” and she proceeded to read The Day I Pooped My Closet from Five Kids is A Lot of Kids. This is why I love Rae. She read this blog with conviction, and […]

I found this story somehow when I was having a rough day during my first pregnancy. It was the best story I ever read . I’m sorry for your reality that day. But just know it brings me laughter every time I need it to make me realize maybe my day wasn’t that bad . #11yearsstrong

[…] to write than others. Mine tend to get a little flip flopped. Writing about the church? Ugh. HARD. Writing about pooping my closet? Surprisingly easy. So I’m not necessarily like everyone else when it comes to which subjects […]

After having 10 kids (well I can’t take credit for the 10th, as he was adopted), I so feel your pain. Nobody tells you what you are really getting into…if they did, we wouldn’t believe it anyway – right?
Thankfully I was wearing my Poise pads while reading your post…cause once you’ve had 10 kids (okay okay okay – 9 kids), you go from peeing yourself from pregnancy to peeing yourself from being OLD and from those previous pregnancies.
Life is so magical!

Omg,Thank you for sharing this! I can’t stop laughing. Being pregnant with twins is something else. When I was pregnant with my twin boys I caught a bad stomach bug, and every time I threw up I would pee myself.

So a very full bladder woke me at dawn this morning. As usual/ much to my dismay, the WC was occupied. En route to the WC, I noted that “Stormy PEEEED”, behind the chair in the usual manner. I headed to the kitchen to get paper towels to dry that up. While I was unwrapping said towels, of course, there were none open, I noted a fetid puffball du chat on the floor. Hoping that I could clean it up before the dog did, I hurried faster to open the towels, whose packaging might have survived a zombie apocalypse, and dropped them. Please bear in mind this entire time, my very full bladder began to shriek audibly, could not even stand up straight. Finally I captured the rolling towels, cleaned up after du chat, and ran crouched over toward the stormy pee… Hoping I didnt make that mess even worse. But, I was waylaid, ambushed,by Stormy, who, while I was cleaning cat poop and chasing towels, shat all over the floor in front of the stove, which, I didnt notice in the dark kitchen with a full bladder…. Until I stepped in it. I still had to pee and had yet to make it to the original puddle. I left my slippers where they were, after screaming… Was drying up the original floor pool… Really, really trying not to pee in the floor myself. Finally made it to the bathroom! The rug was folded under itself and felt like a turd when I stepped on it. So I screamed again… Like ya do. I hope my day gets better.

[…] Also-also, we totaled our minivan two weeks ago. And by “we,” I mean Greg totaled the van and NOT ME. HOORAY! I asked Greg what happened but he didn’t really say. All I know is that the tree won, and the van lost, and no one got hurt, and I have learned SO MUCH about marriage during the past 20 years, y’all — SO, SO MUCH — that I didn’t ask any follow-up questions, and I’m letting it remain a mystery. Upon further consideration, I’m taking back what I said above about not wife-ing well. I’m pretty much the best wife EVER. […]

[…] last fall when I wet my office, about which I haven’t written because I’m loathe to be the girl who pooped my closet AND the girl who peed my office. I mean, how much believable pottying-on-oneself can one actually […]

Oh, Beth, thanks for the laughter! That same year, I was pregnant, sitting on the futon watching TV with my husband. I got up to go to the bathroom, reflux reared its ugly head, and I ended up both vomiting AND peeing on the futon. And just like you, I cried, and my husband took care of it for me. Solidarity, sister!